I benchmarked 6 different metal USB sticks

Background

I have had the same Kingston DataTraveller DTSE9 since around 2010, when I was still in school. I’ve carried it on my keychain for at least 12 years and it still works, its “the old reliable”.

That said, it’s slow. Very slow. I use it mostly as a boot USB for Linux / Windows, so I need several sticks with decent random read speed, and decent write speed for when I update them.

My criteria were:

  • All-metal construction for durability, including the keychain loop
  • Sits well on a keychain next to keys
  • Reasonable speed, including random reads.

Testing method

I evaluated the sticks in two ways.

I ran CrystalDiskMark with 256 MiB (x5) configuration.

I also measured the angle at which the USB stick sits on a keyring. I found that several of them could not sit perpendicular to a keyring it because of their geometry, which makes it difficult to comfortably use them next to keys.

At the datum of 0 degrees, the key sits perpendicular to the keyring.

Results

The competitors

Here are the 6 main competitors in this space I bought.

All transfer units are in MB/s.

Product Price (£) Angle on keyring (0deg is best) Sequential reads Q8T1 Sequential reads Q1T1 Random reads Q32T1 Random reads Q1T1 Sequential writes Q8T1 Sequential writes Q1T1 Random writes Q32T1 Random writes Q1T1
Corsair GTX 128GB 65 (256GB version) 0 470.214 429.330 157.436 19.390 436.990 414.201 166.829 38.937
Samsung Bar 64GB 10 55 305.424 305.268 14.517 13.428 36.434 36.247 20.537 21.619
Kingston DTSE9G3 64GB 11 0 246.705 244.496 13.756 13.028 100.236 110.054 0.484 0.474
Integral Arc 3 10 0 162.336 161.338 15.567 11.188 49.457 47.965 5.032 4.244
Kingston DataTraveller Micro 64GB 11 0 247.000 245.247 13.788 12.961 100.932 101.292 0.496 0.470
Sandisk Ultra Luxe 64GB 12 25 403.863 399.974 12.438 12.054 91.835 91.685 4.272 4.258

Some additional notes:

  • The Samsung Bar had really sharp corners. You might need to file them down like I did.
  • Corsair GTX: the 128GB version is no longer available and the lowest capacity is 256GB. It’s more of a portable SSD in the form of a USB stick, which makes it really fast, but it’s bulkier than a normal USB stick, though not by much. Often it takes up more than one USB port because it’s wide. It’s still very good and I recommend it.

Other devices

Some related products I own but don’t qualify for this comparison but are offered up here for context.

Here’s why they don’t qualify.

  • Crucial P3 Plus: It’s an NVME SSD. Can be made portable with a good enclosure, but too bulky for what I’m looking for.

  • Samsung 860 Evo: It’s a SATA SSD, definitely not the right form factor.

  • Sandisk Ultra Curve: I bought this thinking it was made out of metal, but it was not. It’s fairly flimsy plastic.

  • Kingston DTSE9 16GB: This is my old stick. The old reliable. No longer sold, but I’ve tested its successor.

  • Samsung SD Card: It’s a 2016 MicroSD card connected to my PC via a MicroSD-SD adapter and a USB card reader. I included this as a meme.

Product Sequential reads Q8T1 Sequential reads Q1T1 Random reads Q32T1 Random reads Q1T1 Sequential writes Q8T1 Sequential writes Q1T1 Random writes Q32T1 Random writes Q1T1
Crucial P3 Plus M.2 NVME 2TB 1598.227 1332.131 305.220 46.643 1560.989 1452.256 238.134 102.502
Samsung 860 Evo SATA 1TB 564.446 539.913 272.631 43.322 536.440 518.168 238.752 101.313
Sandisk Ultra Curve 160.091 158.859 9.271 9.043 58.680 60.377 2.902 3.209
Old Kingston DTSE9 16GB 18.452 18.220 8.473 8.096 13.626 13.629 0.115 0.026
Samsung Memory Pro Plus Micro SD Card 20.765 20.969 5.146 5.102 19.493 20.316 2.181 3.421

Conclusion

There are no clear winners in this fight.

  • The Corsair GTX is the fastest in all categories by a country mile, but has a larger form-factor than other entries and higher price. Very good, but not for everyone.
  • Samsung Bar has the fastest random writes, and decent performance in other metrics for its USB stick form factor, but sits awful on a keychain due to the angled hole.
  • The Integral Arc 3 has solid random performance, but worst sequential performance than the rest.
  • Sandisk Ultra Luxe gets the best overall balance of performance, but does not sit on the keychain super well.
  • The two Kingston’s perform effectively the same, with the Micro being much more compact. That said, that can be a disadvantage on a keyring if there are adjacent items.
  • All competitors (bar the GTX) had similar random reads.

For me, I’d say the right choice is either the Kingston DTSE9G3. It’s a nice upgrade over my old DTSE9 and sits nicely next to it’s grandfather. If I needed any random writes though, for copying lots of small documents like code files, I’d pick the Integral Arc 3.